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How The Law Decides Who Pays – Part I

Many insurance companies and personal injury lawyers have a tendency of making people think that assigning responsibility is a complicated matter. In reality you dont need much more than common sense to figure out who the guilty party is.
When the Courts Are Involved
Most of the time personal injury insurance claims are settled long before the courts are involved, but in a small number of cases when the courts are involved the injured party must prove the following 4 things:

Damages:

The term damage is simply legal lingo for the amount of emotional and physical injury one has suffered, combined with the financial burden they incurred as a result of those injuries. The key thing with damages is that you can only claim what injuries you have suffered during the accident in question. This might seem like an obvious point, buy youll find many victims exaggerating injuries or trying to claim on injuries that occurred elsewhere.

Causation:

Even if you are able to prove that a certain person has been acting in a way that did neglect the law you must also prove that the neglect caused the injury. For example, just because a person might have driven through a red traffic light does not mean that it caused a car crash you were involved in. When arguing causation you dont have to prove that the negligent action is 100% to blame for an injury. Even if it at the very least contributed a minimal amount then you have a case.

Breach Of Duty:

To prove breach of duty is essential to getting a compensation payout. Its typically done by using some metric that is used to also signify if a law is broken. For example, it might be going over the speed limit or driving through a red light. However, some cases arent so black and white. You might need to argue your case because the negligence of the accused is open to interpretation.

Duty To Care:

In society every person has a duty to not harm another person, and this duty is met by acting in a certain way, or the avoidance of doing something in a dangerous manner. It is important to prove that the accused was the person who had the duty of care in the incident in question. Without proving this they cannot be held responsible for the accident.
Using A Lawyer To Understand Your Case
The 4 considerations above that must be understood before proceeding with your compensation claim can be too much to handle for some people. Your accident might be a complicated one, and proving breach of duty or duty to care can be difficult. In such cases an experienced personal injury lawyer is what youll need to give yourself a good chance of success.